Is Being Poor a Crime?

New study shows how common it is to be jailed for failure to pay municipal fines in Milwaukee

We aren’t supposed to put people in
jail simply for spitting in public, littering or disorderly conduct.

But each year thousands of Milwaukeeans
spend time in jail—and potentially lose their driver’s licenses—for violating
city ordinances. That’s especially true if you are an African American man in
your twenties and thirties.

A new study from the nonprofit Justice Initiatives Institute (JII) found
that from 2008-2013, 9,277 individuals did some jail time for failing to pay
their municipal citations, with judgments totaling $6.5 million.

The majority of those detained for
failing to pay their municipal fines—78%—were African American, and 84% of the
detainees were men. Almost half of them live in the city’s five poorest ZIP
codes. The majority are unemployed, while those who are employed work at
low-wage jobs.

These primarily poor, African
American men were charged with and ultimately jailed for violating the city’s
ordinances, civil offenses. These detainees were ticketed, failed to appear in
court and pay their fines, perhaps multiple times, and then were issued
warrants and picked up and jailed before going back in front of the court to
resolve their case.

According to the JII report written
in collaboration with UW-Milwaukee’s
Employment and Training Institute, Cited
in Milwaukee: The Cost of Municipal Citations, 29% of the municipal citations
that resulted in jail time were for disorderly conduct, 21% for traffic
violations such as driving after license suspension or revocation, 12% for
loitering, 9% for drug or alcohol violations, 9% for retail theft and 8% for
resisting arrest. The remaining 12% of the tickets were for littering, building
code violations and other civil violations.

And if you think that the threat of
jailing someone for not paying municipal fines is a good revenue generator for
the city, it’s not working with these individuals. The researchers found that just
19% of the judgments were paid by those who were detained on municipal
violations.

A 2014 report from City Comptroller
Martin Matson shows the city’s municipal court has $41.2 million in unpaid
receivables on the books, or 28% of all of the city’s unpaid revenues, up from
$35.5 million in 2009. The court can clear its unpaid fines after seven years,
with authorization from the city attorney and Common Council.

Jailing these detainees isn’t cheap.
The cost for time served for those solely detained on municipal violations was estimated
to be $10.2 million during the period under study, more than the $6.5 million to
be collected from these individuals.

But the city isn’t on the hook for
these jail costs. Thanks to a decades-long agreement with Milwaukee County,
county taxpayers pick up the tab for jailing city ordinance violators.

“We have a lot of marginalized
people going through the system and the system isn’t getting a lot out of it,
either,” said JII’s Marilyn Walczak, the lead researcher on the report who also
convened a work group devoted to examining the workings of Milwaukee’s
municipal court.

Is It Working?

Walczak explained how confusing the municipal
court system is, especially if you are struggling with a mental health issue or
are homeless with few resources. Walczak offered as examples municipal tickets
that state the defendant is not required to appear in court, along with a
monetary fine for the violation. That sends a mixed message about whether the
defendant can challenge the ticket in court or must pay the fine outright.

“The system is set up under the
assumption that you are guilty,” Walczak said. “How are you supposed to defend
yourself, especially if you are not given the opportunity to speak to an
attorney unless you have the means to hire one?”

Defendants in the municipal court
system aren’t entitled to legal representation, as they are in the state
courts. Nor are they legally screened for indigency, as they are in state
courts. Impoverished defendants in the municipal court system bear the burden
of offering up that information to a judge; it isn’t requested.

Walczak said that although the
statutes don’t require municipal court judges to ask a defendant about income
status, “it would be the right thing for them to do.”

Jail isn’t the only way defendants
can work off their fines. They’re allowed to do community service as an
alternative punishment. But the JII study found that a mere 86 individuals who
had been detained worked off their fines while doing community service. An
additional 121 individuals partially completed community service to resolve
their cases.

Walczak wondered if the use of jail
to punish municipal violators was good public policy.

“If the system is set up to create a
revenue stream, at least with this group [of detainees] it’s not doing a very
good job,” Walczak said. “And if it’s supposed to improve public safety, I
don’t know if it’s doing that, either.”

Marijuana Violations and Driver’s Licenses

The JII report also looked at two
areas of high concern: marijuana possession cases and the impact of revoking a
defendant’s driver’s license for failure to pay municipal fines.

City ordinances impose fines for possession
of very small amounts of marijuana. The report found that marijuana violations
resulted in 3,388 cases for the detained population from 2008-2013, or 57,526
days served in jail. The average amount owed by a detainee in a marijuana case
was $348, high for a municipal citation, and 84% of those who were jailed for
these violations were African American. Judges only offered detainees the
option of doing community service in 36 marijuana cases.

Also concerning is the impact of
driver’s license revocations or suspensions as a court sanction. Wisconsin
statutes allow municipal courts to take away the driver’s license from
defendants who owe the court money even if their violations are unrelated to
driving. The court can also prevent a defendant who owes money from obtaining a
license.

UWM’s John Pawasarat, who
collaborated on the JII study, said that it isn’t surprising that revoking
one’s license for failure to pay a fine doesn’t deter that individual from
driving. But if they get caught driving without a valid license, the price to
be paid is steep—potential jail time. What’s more, employers screen out job
seekers who don’t have a valid driver’s license, making employment difficult if
not impossible for struggling Milwaukeeans.

Suspending a defendant’s license for
failure to pay municipal fines “is probably the worst possible employment
policy ever, when you combine putting them in jail, and breaking up their
employment, and then adding in getting their license suspended if you have
one,” Pawasarat said.